'What a strong Wind Spell.' Vale thought as he looked above to see the floating perpetrator. At this time, he already had his Human Shapeshift Spell activated and didn't look like his original appearance at all.
Nevertheless, he still looked young similar to Philip's age.
At this time, he wasn't in a hurry to either escape or fight. He wanted to see if he could actually extract this person who managed to evade the natural detection of his Extrasensory Perception Spell.
The only reason he felt that something was off just now was because of his unnatural high intelligence. Having 100 Intelligence Points or 50 Spirit Strands seems to have increased his sensitivity in the surroundings.
"This… Should we not run away, Vale?" Philip softly asked while looking at the man floating above the village.
The villagers also witnessed this scene as they started panicking and running away. Seeing someone flying might be quite an awesome sight, but it was also terrifying from another perspective.
Nevertheless, Vale didn't feel the pressure facing this man for some reason. Right now, with his current set of spells, he just can't think that someone could defeat him alone. Perhaps he would consider running away if there were a dozen of them.
"Haa… So they have to send me to chase after a kid? Tsk…" Sherman said with a frown as he fixed his top hat while floating.
"Hey, are you the Masked Devil?" He added.
"Masked Devil?" Vale couldn't help but smile after hearing this. He certainly heard about this nickname after staying here for a while.
"Yes, the one who destroyed the Murton Castle? Are you his apprentice or something? You don't look that impressive." The man said as he briefly glanced at Philip before shifting his gaze to Vale.
He could guess that Philip was the one who had been rescued from the castle. On the other hand, Vale seemed too young to be the notorious Masked Devil he heard from his employer.
Since the Devil Incarnate could summon lightning and defeat the previous Headmaster of the Vermont Academy, he was expecting something more.
He was expecting a mysterious man with a deathly aura surrounding his body, holding a skull cane, with a devil-like face, sinister eyes, and evil spirits surrounding him…
However, Vale's appearance disappointed him.
In the meantime, Vale was also assessing the man. He used his Divine Sense but to his surprise, he didn't get a feedback!
The man must have a powerful Mystical Artifact to avoid the Divine Sense's detection!
Vale took a deep breath as he considered a few things for a moment before deciding not to answer the man's question. He didn't see the benefit of answering him for now.
Instead, he raised his hands and opened his palm.
'Traceless Shift…'
Vale triggered his spell as he targeted the man's top hat. He knew that it was a Mystical Artifact, so he didn't hesitate to take it. That would surely surprise the man, and Vale wanted to see how he would react once it was stolen.
However, something unexpected happened when he triggered his spell.
For the first time, he felt resistance using the Traceless Shift!
He saw how the top hat only shook for a moment before stabilizing again.
'This guy is too mysterious… This is dangerous.' Vale silently thought as he looked at the person above them with a serious look on his face.
"Ho~ What did you just do?" The man squinted his eyes as he asked curiously. He touched his top hat and inspected it briefly but didn't find anything wrong.
He was confused.
"What you did seemed harmless, so my defensive spell didn't activate. I'm curious…" He muttered.
Vale frowned at this since the man didn't seem to notice what he just did! It means his Traceless Shift was resisted without much effort!
Then, he also tried using his Spirit Vision, and once again, he actually failed to see something abnormal in the man even though he was literally floating in the sky!
After some thought, Vale decided to change his tactic.
"I'm Eustace. Who are you? Why are you doing this to us?"
He needed to know the person before him, so he decided to engage in a conversation.
"Eustace, huh… That's a rare name. Are you from the western region?"
"What if I am?" Vale asked.
"Mhmm… I just want to know my enemy. You can call me Sherman. I'm an Arcanist hired to chase after the Masked Devil, not you and your friend. Now, tell me where the Masked Devil is, and I promise as a respected bounty hunter, you won't be involved in my hunt."
He paused for a moment as he seemed to have realized something and said, "Oh, did he leave the two of you after sensing my presence?" Sherman added as he started descending.
"He must've fled by now, huh…"
With his current strength, he can't feel threatened by a couple of kids, so he appears quite relaxed.
Well, considering he was sent here to chase after the Masked Devil Incarnate, it was certain that he had the strength to back his confidence.
Vale decided that it was enough to probe this man.
He summoned his three Ghost Hands before Sherman could land beside them.
Sherman smirked, seeing the three giant Ghost Hands that Vale had summoned.
He also used a similar technique, but in his case, he used three human-sized Fire Hands to stop his Ghost Hands!
Vale felt it was a ridiculous match, but to his surprise, the Ghost Hands barely lasted for a couple of seconds before being destroyed!
"Hmm?" Vale was momentarily surprised, but he quickly collected his mind.
Whoosshh~
The three Fire Hands didn't disappear yet as they started getting closer to him.
'So Ghost Hands are a bad match against these flaming hands?' Vale furrowed his brows as he looked at the Spells coming at him.
He decided not to dodge this spell since Philip was behind him.
Instead, he confidently used his Spell Dispersion Spell to remove the Fire Hands in his sight. He even used his Shadow Soldier Spell at the same time and made it appear below Sherman while he was descending.
However, another unexpected thing happened.
'W-what? Isn't this a bit too tough?!' Vale thought as he gathered his Dark Energy in his palm and slapped the weakening Fire Hands.
Poof! Poof! Poof!
The Elemental Spell was finally dealt with.
That's right, his Spell Dispersion just now didn't disperse the Fire Spell but only weakened it to the point that he could just slap it to disappear.
The Spell Dispersion was still working, but it didn't seem effective against the man's spell!
'What's going on?'
Vale then shifted his attention to his Shadow Soldier and realized that a hand-sized mirror, held by Sherman, was beaming light on his soldier and made it unable to move!
It was even slowly melting away!
Updat𝒆d fr𝒐m freew𝒆bnov𝒆l.c(o)m